Tuesday, November 06, 2012

Zimbabwe unable to afford elections

One country today is unable to afford elections and will be asking for
international donations to help pay for it. Zimbabwe has twice delayed
elections because it doesn't have the money run them. They might have to do the
same again next year unless they receive help. Zimbabwe not only needs to hold an
election for officials, but they also need to have a referendum on a new
constitution.

Zimbabwe's
inflation has been off the charts during the last few years. Calculators can no
longer compute how much things cost in the country. The cost for the two
elections is said to be 219 million U.S. dollars, but it is an astronomical
amount in Zimbabwean dollars.

It's a two-for-one deal. In the coming year, if all goes to plan –
and it rarely does – Zimbabweans should vote twice: once in a referendum
on a new constitution and again during national elections. According to
the Zimbabwe Electoral Commission, the referendum will set the state
back a hefty $104-million, while the elections required $115-million.

As
a bonus, these elections will include three by-elections which should
have been held this year. They were postponed when President Robert Mugabe
successfully argued they should be delayed. His reasoning? They were
too expensive. According to his estimates, the by-elections would set
the state back around $38-million – that's just under $13-million per
member of parliament.

Zimbabwe's situation is not unusual.
Elections are a generally expensive business. In the United States,
spending in preparation for next week's elections is estimated to be
nearly $6-billion, with campaign adverts taken into account. That's more
than twice the GDP of Lesotho. In fact, it's only a few billion short
of the GDP of Zimbabwe itself.

But the United States can afford
expensive elections. Zimbabwe, alas, cannot. Finance Minister Tendai
Biti came out last week and told the rest of his unity government quite
bluntly that there's unlikely to be enough money in the budget to fund
the necessary democratic processes. He suggested that Zimbabwe look to
foreign donors for assistance: to the likes of the European Union and
the International Monetary Fund.